February 28, 2017

Contents

Patch Highlights

Starting today, every player can create their own, unique Overwatch experience and share it with their friends, teammates, or the entire world. Introducing the Game Browser.

An extension of Overwatch's Custom Game mode, the Game Browser allows you to adjust the settings on various maps, modes, and heroes to create your own tailor-made match. For example, if you want to increase the speed of Pharah’s rockets or remove the cooldown from McCree's Combat Roll, the power is yours. Once you're happy with your settings, and you're ready to launch your game, you'll need to set up permissions. You can limit the people who can join your game by toggling the "Friends Only" or "Invite Only" options, but if you want to put your strange creation to a real test, set your server to "Public" and click the launch button.

Capture the Rooster has been, without a doubt, Overwatch’s most popular brawl. We don’t want the excitement to end, so we’re bringing Capture the Flag to the Arcade as an ongoing game mode. Starting today, we’re adding Capture the Flag versions of Nepal, Lijiang Tower, Ilios, and Oasis, which gives you 12 maps to try when creating a Custom Game.

Developer Comments: The goal of these changes is to move some of Bastion's power from Configuration: Sentry to Recon, while keeping its sentry mode a strong option, especially versus tanks and barriers. Overall, Bastion should feel stronger and more flexible with these changes.

Enemy shots no longer need to travel a minimum distance before they can be blocked

Developer Comments: Previously, there was a minimum distance a projectile had to travel before it could be destroyed by Defense Matrix. This made it nearly worthless in situations where an enemy was right next to your teammate, such as when Roadhog hooks your ally. This change removes that restriction so Defense Matrix should now reliably destroy projectiles regardless of how far they have traveled.

Developer Comments: Mercy’s Resurrect has always been very powerful, but it often forces her to sacrifice herself to use it well. There have been changes in the past that attempted to help her in this area, but haven’t done enough to solve it. This change means that once she uses the ability, she will always survive long enough to be with her team again.

Developer Comments: Back in July, the damage per second from Symmetra’s turrets was reduced by 30 percent. We’ve been keeping an eye on her over the past few months and decided to restore about 15 percent of that damage. On PC, her damage is still 30.

Developer Comments: Like Symmetra, the damage from Torbjörn’s turrets was also reduced by 30 percent in July. After monitoring his effectiveness, we’ve decided to give his turret a small boost, restoring about 15 percent of the damage. By contrast, the damage from Torbjörn’s turret on PC is still 14.

Developer Comments: We’ve noticed that some players have been deliberately throwing their matches in an effort to reach the lowest attainable skill rating. We obviously don’t want to incentivize this behavior, because Competitive Play works best when everybody is trying.

Map Balance Changes

General

When attackers outnumber defenders while taking a control point on Assault, Escort and Assault/Escort maps, the defenders’ respawn time will slowly increase until it hits a maximum value or the defense manages to gain the upper hand.

Developer Comments: Until now, stalling an attack by repeatedly throwing yourself at the point has been a common defensive strategy on Assault, Escort and Assault/Escort maps—even when the attackers have a decisive advantage. Typically, this tactic doesn’t change the outcome of battle; it simply delays the attackers’ progress.

A second gate no longer closes after the payload passes through the castle doors. Instead, rubble from the damaged doorway partially blocks the entrance.

Developer Comments: Once the offensive team gets through the castle entrance, the map becomes very heavily stacked in the defense’s favor. This change will give the offense more entrance options, which should improve the map’s overall balance.

Bug Fixes

General

Fixed an audio bug that prevented the point capture sound from increasing in pitch as the capture progressed

Fixed an issue preventing key bindings on the communication wheel from displaying properly

Fixed a bug causing some key bindings to revert to default after the first round of a Control map

Fixed a bug that allowed commendation cards to be recalculated and transferred to a new player after the previous recipient left at the end of a round

Fixed a bug that caused the “experience gained” audio effects to continue playing, even after the players left the game lobby